Birds and Nature

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I spotted this dark morph Harlan's Hawk perched on a pole just outside of the small town of Manzanola, CO two days ago. I inadvertently flushed it and it's bright white leucistic feathers made this bird really stand out. I see several Harlan's Red-tailed Hawks most years but I have never seen a leucistic one.
Dark morph harlani characteristics include blackish body and
underwing coverts, substantial white on it's breast, white streaks on
head, white underside of tail with blackish terminal band contrasts with
the blackish uppertail that has some white basal feathers. The bright white leucistic wing feathers are most eye-catching."Leucism is defined as a partial or total lack of eumelanin and phaeomelanin in the feathers as a
result of inherited disorder of the deposition of these pigments in the feathers....Different forms of leucism are known and can vary from only a few white feathers (<25 br="" individuals=&quo…

As I was driving north on the way back to Colorado I spotted this Harlan's Hawk perched right next to H87 a little north of O'Donnell, TX over the week-end. As I was driving the 75 mph speed limit I had to make a turn several hundred yards down the highway and go back to confirm it. Like most other Harlan's Hawks I have observed it was extremely sensitive to being looked at and photographed so even though I stopped on the shoulder of the other side of this divided 4 lane highway it took off before I could take any photos. It did just fly to the next utility pole so I carefully followed and stopped even further back to get the photos which I took from inside my car so even though I took the pics at 600mm I still had to crop them severely to get these pics.
Harlan's characteristics on this hawk include: a white streaked throat and breast on very dark feathers with white lores, white supercilium plus additional and fairly extensive white on it's head. In keepin…

There are two birds in this photo. Can you see them? Can you identify them?
Click on 'Read more' to find out.
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Two Common Pauraques, a neotropical bird species whose cryptic plumage makes it very well camouflaged. They are only found in the U.S. in southern parts of Texas with the highest numbers found in the Rio Grande Valley. Even so it is very unusual to find two of them roosting near each other and especially both the gray and brown…

I spotted this Green Heron walking just behind the vegetation in the marsh below the South Padre Island Convention Center boardwalk on yesterday. They either move slowly or just stand in place until they rapidly thrust their bills at some prey. Though they are a pretty chestnut below and green or blue above with orange legs they blend in well with their habitat. The pic below is a 4 X view (220mm) of the bird above that was taken at 25X (600mm) view then cropped to this very close up view. SeEtta

I didn't get these up for yesterday's SuperOwlSunday so better late than never. This guy was located behind a lot of tree branches and some leaves making me work to get a sharp photo. The pic below is the full body shot of the same owl as the close up above. There was a second owl near this one but it flushed when I stopped my car so no pic.
The two pics below are of the third owl I spotted day before yesterday when I birded in northern Hildago County. A three owl day is pretty good especially as they were all seen in mid afternoon.
All pics above is taken with 600 mm or 25x lens then cropped even further. The pic below is at equivalent focal length of 170mm or just over 3X normal eye view. SeEtta

I enjoy watching birds of species that I am not familiar with so returned to Quinta Mazatlan this afternoon to look for the rare Blue Bunting again. It has continued to be seen most often at their amphitheater feeders and I waited there. When I saw it last week I thought I heard it call before it came into view so I was delighted to hear it call and a few minutes later it came in the opposite side of the feeders from where I sat and only stayed a short time so I missed it. Later I was much luckier. Again I heard it call and a couple minutes later it flew onto the top of a brush pile but quickly flew down and went back into the vegetation. I did pick it up about a foot or so back in the plumaged where it sat quietly for several minutes before walking around between the brush pile and vegetation then disappearing for several more minutes. Then it flew up to the wood feeder and chowed down on bird seed (looks like it ate millet) as shown in the video clip and did so for almost 15 m…